People’s Park has a new freebox and this one, say supporters, has been built to last. -more-
Members of the Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees have introduced a resolution censuring fellow trustee Marcie Hodge for what the resolution calls “behavior that is out of compliance with the established Peralta Community College District policies” of “civility and mutual respect” and accusing her of “emotionally ºviolent behavior.” Trustees are prepared to vote on the censure resolution at Tuesday night’s regular trustee meeting. -more-
Safeway plans to tear down its 1500 Solano Ave. store in Albany and replace it with a new store and 40-or-so-units of condominiums—signaling a major shift in the focus of the giant grocery retailer. -more-
Alameda County voters got their first look at life in the paper-trail, electronic voting era when four companies showed off their machines Monday at the Alameda County Conference Center in Oakland. -more-
University of California Regents come to the UC Berkeley campus this week for a series of rare regular meetings, and unions and student activists have planned a traditional Berkeley-type welcome of protest demonstrations. -more-
Minority students blasted UC Berkeley’s administration Thursday for not taking bolder steps to diversify the student body. -more-
Berkeley’s newest addition to the National Register of Historic Places overlooks the first, a small laboratory in the attic of one of the smaller buildings on the UC Berkeley campus. -more-
Evictions, RFIDs, the Drayage, the infamous Downing Street Memo and by-right additions are just a few of the items on Tuesday night’s City Council agenda. -more-
Homeless organizers began sleeping openly in Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. Park Sunday night to protest the lack of space where homeless people are allowed to sleep in the city. -more-
Downtown parking, perhaps Berkeley’s favorite complaint subject after George W. Bush and the Bush administration, tops the agenda for Thursday night’s meeting of the Transportation Commission. -more-
When President Jean Bertrand Aristide was forced out of Haiti Feb. 29, 2004, every township in the nation was touched. -more-
We’re in a seismic season. From the recent South Asian disaster to the approaching Centennial of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, earthquakes are attracting increasing public attention. -more-
To view Justin DeFreitas’ latest editorial cartoon, please visit -more-
Berkeley police responded to a call of an argument on 1418 Curtis St. around 7 p.m. Monday. -more-
All the elements for the outbreak of youth rebellion are present in Western Europe. Hardly unique to France are the marginalized second or third generation immigrants out of place in their parents’ old countries but not fully accepted by their own. So are unemployment, social discrimination and underclasses packed in dismal neighborhoods of despair. -more-
For two hours last Friday I was home alone. This may not seem remarkable to most people, but for me it was an unexpected miracle. My husband’s attendant and a former attendant decided, on their own initiative, to take Ralph shopping. -more-
The United States Justice Department is reviewing the proposed merger between New Times and Village Voice Media, a deal that would create a 17-paper alternative newspaper chain and do incalculable damage to the alternative press in this country. There’s a chance that the federal regulators will recognize the obvious media-concentration and anti-competitive issues and delay or block the deal. -more-
Are horticultural freedom of expression and Mother Nature both currently outlawed by the vegetation section of the “blight” ordinance of the City of Oakland? This highly intrusive law needs to be severely pruned back to allow a breath of horticultural freedom in Oakland. -more-
If politics is comparable to making sausage, then I was placed in a meat grinder last Tuesday—my first time working as a clerk at the polls. -more-
Berkeley may pass up a golden opportunity to enhance the quality of life for our children by not moving to build the largest possible, multi-purpose field at Derby Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. We are not talking about a “Big League” baseball field, but a multi-purpose field to be used by high school soccer, lacrosse, field hockey and baseball players, as well as the neighbors. Money, of course, is the key, but I can’t believe our community cannot come up with a creative means to fund this great project by using already committed school district funds, City of Berkeley funds and money from both public and private organizations. -more-
I have never been to the South. I never went to the Jazz Festival or Mardi Gras. So working with an East Bay city in developing a program to respond to the needs of evacuees is paradoxical. I am grateful to have worked with such a resilient group of people and saddened by the entire tragedy. I cannot capture in writing the experience that these people have endured. I can only imagine, and with certainty fall short of the mark, in terms of understanding their sense of loss, grief, anger and exhaustion. When I try to imagine being there, some specific accounts come to mind: -more-
By a strange coincidence, two of the brightest young stars in jazz are both from Motown, both born in the ’60s and both named Carter: saxophonist James and violinist Regina. Because of their incredible promise and virtuosity, it is painful to admit that both have been known to falter occasionally in the heat of improvisation. Still, it is always worth catching either of them whenever they appear locally. Whatever momentary failures they may experience, they have more than enough personal incandescence to carry the flame of jazz into the future. -more-
Coming into the Ashby Stage for the Shotgun Lab production of Cry, Don’t Cry (running through this Thursday), the audience has to wonder: “What sort of show are we in for?” -more-
Got fruit? -more-
In the last use of non-paper trail electronic voting machines in Alameda County before new state standards kick in next year, voting reportedly went smoothly in last Tuesday’s special election, but the vote tallying trailed behind counting in other parts of the state. -more-
Two years after the North Oakland community successfully fought to regain their Oakland Police Department Crime Reduction Teams (CRT), the new chief of the Oakland Police Department has removed them again. -more-
UC Berkeley’s nearly halfway to funding a major retrofit of Memorial Stadium, and plans unveiled Thursday have already sparked controversy. -more-
In a massive show of force on June 16, Berkeley police officers served a search warrant on Karim Cycle at 2800 Telegraph Ave., drawing the attention of neighbors and press whom they summoned to the scene. -more-
Berkeley residents will get two chances next week to hear about relationships with the University of California, and the direction of the presentations could probably not be further apart. -more-
As Berkeley lobbies neighboring cities to join in its greenhouse gas reduction efforts, constituents at UC Berkeley are trying to get their school to follow suit. -more-
Given their penultimate chance to raise issues for the environmental impact report on the new Berkeley Bowl store planned for the corner of Ninth Street and Heinz Avenue, most speakers focused on one issue: traffic. -more-
Due to a copy editing error, Joe Eaton’s Nov. 8 column did not run in its entirety. The complete article is available on our website: www.berkeleydailyplanet.com.2 -more-
Campbell Coe, legendary resident of Berkeley and Seattle, Wash., died in his sleep at 4 p.m. on Oct. 2. Campbell’s six-year battle with prostate cancer ended in Honeydew Home, a hospice, in Renton, Wash. He was 81. -more-
Women have had a bruising time in the public eye lately, ranging from Judith Miller’s deceptive reports in the New York Times to Harriet Miers’ embarrassing qualifications for the Supreme Court. So when a woman manages to outperform the most confident governor in America, it’s worth celebrating. -more-
“The World Can’t Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime! The World Can’t Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime!” was the battle cry of some Bay Area residents last Wednesday. -more-
Bay of Pigs Redux? -more-
It’s hard for a politician to lose more decisively than California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger did on Tuesday night. And within moments after Mr. Schwarzenegger made his concession speech at a Beverly Hills hotel on Tuesday night, political observers were calling this a self-inflicted wound, accusing the governor and his advisors of hubris, overreaching in an attempt to stuff their mouths with political power. -more-
To view Justin DeFreitas’ latest editorial cartoon, please visit -more-
From time to time in our nation’s history, a cultural or social upheaval has resulted in a wave of new lawmakers entering Congress. Often the triggering event has been war. John F. Kennedy was one of many young men who returned from World War II to serve the nation as political leaders, and several members of the “greatest generation” continue to serve in Congress. There are numerous Korean War and Vietnam War veterans in Congress as well, the two most prominent Vietnam veterans being former presidential candidates John Kerry (D-MA) and John McCain (R-AZ). -more-
This Tuesday the City Council will consider neighbors’ appeal of a ZAB decision approving the conversion of a small, single-story, single-family house at 2901 Otis St. into a three-story “pop-up” apartment building. One controversial aspect of this proposed project is that the developers propose to provide the three required off-street parking spaces by converting the rear yard into a parking lot. -more-
It seems even in Berkeley McCarthy-like tactics are alive and well. Because Andrea Prichett has the temerity to note the many-layered nuances of the issues of drugs and crime and their relationship to poverty, racism and injustice, her job is threatened by one of the plaintiffs in the small claims court suit telephoning her place of employment. It is naïve and disingenuous to ignore the direct relationship that these issues play to the situation involving Mrs. Moore and her home, and we stand with Andre a and Daily Planet Executive Editor Becky O’Malley for courageously addressing them. -more-
Walk into another room past the barroom, and one encounters another bar. Some shows have a play-within-a-play; Woman’s Will has staged Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill’s musical play Happy End in a bar-within-a-bar—at Luka’s Taproom in downtown Oakland. -more-
Because of incorrect information provided by the theater, the names and roles of the actors in The Dick ‘N Dubya Show were reversed in the text and accompanying caption in the Nov. 8 Daily Planet. -more-
Vatey Seng is the bureaucrat you could have encountered in an Alameda County office, the mom you may have met at a high school open house, a neighbor you wave to from across the way. -more-
Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor for the CIA leak case, makes $140,300 a year in his job with the U.S. attorney’s office, according to Slate.com’s excellent “Explainer” column. Besides his Washington case, he’s also handling the prosecution of a former Illinois governor in Chicago. If he were instead holding on to a lucrative private practice while serving as a special prosecutor, he might be making something like the million dollars reported to have been paid to Kenneth Starr by his tobacco in dustry clients while he was Clinton’s special nemesis. -more-
The now distinctly unstylish 19th-century Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins once wrote a poem based on the lamentations of the prophet Jeremiah which could have served as a mantra for disappointed progressives in the last six years or so: -more-
